Bartimaeus 4: The Dark Magician
by Dopey and Doc
Summary: Our story is of magic, and things that fly. With dragons and vampires ,And animals that speak for themselves. There’s romance and danger and plotting of schemes. There’s good guys and bad guys and guys in between .But story is different in theam for our h
1. Nathaniel: Never Piss Off A Goose

**A/N: We don't own. Don't sue us. We only own Alucard and the flock of geese. And Arthur.**

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Bartimaeus 4: The Dark Magician

Prologue: Nathaniel.

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Crunching metal and breaking glass. Nathaniel was up to his ears in the stuff. As the Glass Palace crashed to the ground, Nathaniel knew he'd have to think fast if he wanted to survive. He searched in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bubble gum about the size of a basketball. He'd been chewing and adding to it since he'd been six years old, and it was his most cherished possession. (I know; he's a freak.) He quickly crammed the whole thing in his mouth (with some difficulty) and started chewing it (also with some difficulty. I mean, chewing 12-year-old ABC_- already been chewed_- gum can't be that easy). Finally it was soft enough to start huffing and puffing to blow a HUUUUGE bubble around himself. Try to picture a strawberry flavored pink force field. Like the ones in _Star Wars_. 

When the bubble was big enough (a diameter of six feet and walls a foot thick. Well, it was a _lot_ of gum) it started to float away, carrying Nathaniel to safety. As he was flying away from the wreckage, a mean ol' goose popped the bubble/balloon/force field with its beak. Geese have pretty sharp beaks, you now. Don't ever piss off a goose. It may just be the last thing you ever do…

Anyway, back to Nathaniel. The punctured bubble floated around the sky making a loud, unpleasant farting noise until it came to rest in a pine tree. With points. Very _sharp_ points. The mean ol' goose, who had followed him across the sky, landed on the tree and started pointing and laughing (well, not so much _laughing_ as _quacking_) at poor Nathaniel.

Well, Nat had been having a rough day so far. You know, being beat up by Nouda, almost crushed by a palace, dismissing his friend (of course Nathaniel wouldn't admit to himself that Bartimaeus _was_ a friend.), and now this. A _GOOSE_, for crying out loud. So, he used his magic to roast the goose. Now _he _was the one laughing.

Unfortunately for him, the goose's flock had been watching the entire time. Yes, Nathaniel had pissed off the geese. Not just one goose, but the whole flock. Poor guy. Nathaniel noticed that they were all giving him _THE LOOK_.

"Uh Oh…" he said "I pissed off the geese."

The geese began to get in their V-Shaped Attack Formation, with the goose's mother (let's just call her Mother Goose) on point.

"ATTACK!" she honked "AVENGE OUR FALLEN BROTHER! ON THIS DAY IT WILL RAIN HUMAN BLOOD ON THE FOREST BELOW US!"

Of course, Nathaniel didn't understand any of this. What he heard was more along the lines of"

"HOOONK!! QUACK BOCK HONK HONK QUACK SQUAWK! MOOOOOOOO! OINK OINK WOOF MEOW suqeeak!"

(This was a multilingual flock, of course).

"YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME YOU DUMB CHICKENS?" Nathaniel cried "COME AND GET IT! I COULD TAKE YOU DOOFUSES...eses… doofusi? Whatever. I COULD TAKE YOU…ERR...LOSERS ANY DAY OF THE WEEK! WITH BOTH HANDS TIED BEHIND MY BACK! I LAUGH AT YOU, YOU BEAKY-FACED HONKERS! HEAR ME? HAHAHAAAA! STUPID NINNIES!"

Now he was _really_ doomed. The geese charged, Mother Goose in the lead, at poor Nat. He tried to get his hands free so he could fry the whole flock, but then he realized that the gum and tree sap had stuck both of his hands behind his back. And he was upside down.

"Oh &$!" he cried "I HATE dramatic irony!"

"HA HA!" Mother Goose honked. "You could beat us with both hands behind you back, eh? Well, we'll just see about that!"

Of courses, she didn't say this in English. She spoke a mixture of goose, cat, pig, dog, giraffe, turtle, fish, emu, and alien. Plus a bit of llama.

The geese landed on Nathaniel and went for the eyes, pecking and pecking with their pointy goose-y beaks. Of course, Nat didn't take all of this quietly. No, he struggled against his gummy, sappy prison and shouted what must have been twenty minutes worth of unprintable potty-mouth-ish words. It was _way cool_!

Eventually, Nathaniel's struggling paid off, and he landed head first on the ground before rolling down a steep (almost 90 degree) hill, hitting his head on numerous things (including a rock, a log, a llama, a farmer, a racecar, and a grandfather clock), landing headfirst in a groundhog hole, being beat up and almost eaten by the groundhogs (he'd pissed _them_ off too.), escaping from the hole, and finally landing in a river, which swept him off into the ocean, where he was lightly tapped on the head by a little bit of seaweed, which caused him to lose his memory.

When he lost his memory, he forgot to swim, which meant the he had to cling onto a piece of driftwood to stay above the water. Of course, after twenty minutes of vicious seaweed attacks, he forgot to hold on t the driftwood, and sunk beneath the waves.

A lousy end to a lousy day.

Fortunately, a shrimper (you know, like a whaler, only it catches shrimps) was passing by, and the captain saw this random dude (Nathaniel) sink, so he put in the shrimp nets to catch him….but he missed. So he tried again…and missed. So he sent his son Arthur to get the Dude. (Actually, _sent_ is kind of a gentle term for what he did, which is_ threw_ his eight year old son). Arthur swam like The Hoff or Pamela Anderson or something in _Baywatch._He caught Nathaniel, then started to swim back to the shrimper…

Where the Evil One, Alucard, was waiting.

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**Chapter one is done! R&R! no flames please:)**


	2. Kitty: The Incredible Crying Girl

Bartimaeus 4: The Dark Magician

Chapter 1: Kitty

Kitty was crying. She'd been doing that a lot lately. She was kind of turning in to some wannabe emo kid. You know, wearing all black and quoting depressing poetry.

"The darkness of the night matches my tortured soul…," and all that sort of stuff. It was pretty weird. She'd taken to wandering about London in the middle of the night like a vampire and bawling whenever she saw anything that reminded her of _you-know-who_ (not Lord Voldemort, dummy. Nathaniel!). It wasn't a good idea to mention his name around her, because she'd just cry harder. It was quite loud.

It got so bad that eventually her friend Jacob could hear her all the way from Prague. So he got his phone and gave her a call to try and cheer her up.

Kitty answered her cell the normal way. "Kitty Jones speaking; my life sucks."

"Umm…Kitty? Are you okay?"

"No. I'm wandering around London in the middle of the night."

"Err…why?"

"Because the darkness of the night matches my tortures soul."

"Okay, Kitty. I know you've been kind of messed up since Na-"

"DON'T SAY THE NAME!" shouted people all over England.

"-Thaniel died."

"…"

"…"

Kitty inhaled deeply, and then…

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! MY NATIE-POO!! WHY DID YOU LEAVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?"

A passing flock of geese flew overhead. Mother Goose shouted "BECAUSE YOU'RE A MESS, WOMAN!"

This only made her cry harder. I mean, being honked at by a goose can't be that pleasant, especially when you're an emo kid.

'WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" she screamed, her mouth opening to an extraordinary size (think hot air balloon).

"Kitty….Kitty…KITTY!" Jacob yelled into the phone.

"Wh…what?" she sniffled.

"You're coming to visit me here in Prague. You need to get away from London and all the reminders of…him."

"Oo…okay.."

**THE NEXY DAY…**

When Kitty awoke the next morning, she packed her bags and left her house for the airport. When she got outside, she saw a bunch of reporters and people lined along the street from her house to the airport. They all had signs that said " GOODBYE, KITTY!" , "DON'T RUSH BACK TO ENGLAND ANY TIME SOON" and "WE'RE FINALLY GONNA GET SOME PEACE AND QUIET AROUND HERE!!"

Kitty was touched. She didn't know that so many people cared.

She boarded the plane and looked around for a window seat. It wasn't hard to find since there was nobody else on the plane. Apparently word had gotten out that the Incredible Crying Girl was flying on the 10:30 Prague. Nobody wanted to have their eardrums broken by the siren .An hour or so in the flight Kitty got bored of the movie playing so decided to take a look out the window . To her amazement she saw a flock of gees were sitting on the planes wing and even more amazed when the head of the flock turned to her and put a feather across its beak and shhsed at her ( she couldn't actually hear it but she imagined the sound that must have went with the action) of curse this was none other than Mother Goose and her flock .

Weird, eh?...


	3. Nathaniel: The Crow's Nest

Bartimaeus 4: The Dark Magician

**Chapter 2: Nathaniel The Crow's Nest **

"Luke? Luke? Can you hear me?" a random strange dude was shaking him awake.

"Why are you shaking me umm...umm... who are you?" he asked groggily (he still hadn't gotten over the seaweed attacks.)

"Luke…I am your father." The strange dude said.

"Daddy?" he asked. "I don't remember having a Dad. In fact…I don't remember anything at all. You say my name is Luke?"

"Uhh...Yeah. Luke Sepet. I am your father, Alucard Sepet. And this is your brother, Arthur." Alucard said, gesturing to a small boy standing a few feet away, looking very awkward.

"That was quite a fall you had back there, eh?" he said "Those groundhogs looked pretty mad."

"What groundhogs?" Luke/Nat asked his 'brother' "I don't remember any groundhogs…"

"Uhh...yeah. Groundhogs. Right. There was a whole family of them…umm… up in the crow's nest. Yeah! That's right! They pushed you out because you were eating their food. You fell _all the way_ from there" Alucard gestured up in the sky to the crows nest.

"What crow's nest?" Luke/Nat asked "I don't see anything."

"Why…you must be delusional" Alucard said, pretending to gaze up at the non-existent crow's nest "Of course there's one there! It's uhh…the finest crow's nest in Prague."

"We're in Prague?"

"Of course we are, boy! You grew up here! You should know that. Unless…"

"Unless what?"

"Unless you got amnesia when you hit your head on the way down from the crow's nest!"

Arthur was very puzzled. He squinted up into the blue sky. Luke was right. There _was_ no crow's nest. And what was with this entire BS about being thrown off it? Maybe Dad was the confused one.

"But, Dad..." he said, "There is no-"

He was cut short by his father giving him _THE LOOK_.

"Quiet, boy! Go get your long-lost brother a blanket! He's wet!"

"Long-lost?" asked Luke/Nat "I thought you said that I fell out of the crow's nest?"

"SEE?" roared Alucard to poor Arthur, who was just as confused as Luke/Nat "He's already turning woozy! Get him that darn blankey!"

"Ok, okay…take off, eh?"

Arthur stomped below deck murmuring something that had to do with "dumb blankie" and "bunch of hosers".

Luke/Nat turned to his "father".

"So, we live in Prague?" he asked.

"Yep."

"Just the three of us?"

"That's right."

"What about Mom?"

"Uhh…we don't talk about the Accident. Too painful. Let's just say that it involved a waffle iron. And cheese. Lots and lots of cheese…" Alucard shuddered.

This was followed by an awkward silence. A _very_ awkward silence.

"So….I'm long-lost?"

"Yes."

"But what about the crows nest?" He squinted upwards again, hoping that he would spot the elusive crow's nest, but to no avail. "And the groundhogs?"

"Well….it was a long fall." Alucard looked around, desperately trying to change the subject. "Where is that boy with that blanket? ARTHUR!"

"Take off, eh? I got the blanket! Lay off you knob!" Arthur said, returning with the blanket.

"Let me see if you got the right one." Alucard said, striding over to his eight year old son and bending over so he could whisper in Arthur's ear. "Use your…'poofing skills' to make me a crow's nest! It's the finest in all of Prague!"

"Fine..." he said, using his magic to make a really cool crow's nest. He surveyed his work. "Beauty, eh?"

Alucard straightened up. "Yes, Arthur, this is the right blanket." He looked up. "Look! A cloud shaped like a bunny!"

Luke/Nat looked up quickly. He saw no bunny-shaped cloud, but he _did_ se an awesome crows nest.


End file.
